Google AI Search Uses 10x More Energy Than Standard Searches
Google processes five trillion searches each year. The firm launched AI Overviews in 2024 to provide automated summaries at the top of search results.
According to software firm Ahrefs, 55% of all Google searches now generate one of these AI-produced responses.
The shift has changed how billions of people access information online. It has also created what some researchers describe as a measurement problem in corporate environmental accountability.
Energy use per query
According to the International Energy Agency, a single query on ChatGPT consumed 10 times as much electricity as a traditional Google search.
Google published what it described as the first complete estimate of energy consumption for its Gemini applications in August 2025.
According to the company, a median Gemini text prompt consumes 0.24 watt-hours of electricity, produces 0.03 grams of CO₂ emissions and uses 0.26 millilitres of water for data centre cooling.
According to the AI Overview function itself, generating a summary through Google's search bar uses the same amount of energy as a standard Gemini prompt.
The figures could show that individual AI interactions consume relatively little energy. The environmental challenge emerges when those queries are multiplied across billions of searches.
Google itself says that even modest increases in energy demand per query can translate into enormous consumption at full scale. The company's greenhouse gas emissions were 48% higher in 2023 than in 2019, with Google attributing much of the increase to expanding data centre infrastructure and growing AI-related computing demands.
Data centre infrastructure pressure
Google has acknowledged in its environmental reporting that reducing emissions may become harder as AI is integrated more deeply across its products because of the greater intensity of AI computing workloads. The wider tech sector faces a similar challenge, with Microsoft admitting that AI has changed its climate targets.
Researchers have warned that demand for AI services is creating a new wave of data centre construction. This expansion is increasing pressure on electricity grids and, in some regions, extending reliance on fossil fuel generation.
The impacts of AI are already visible in Google's own sustainability reporting, which has shown continued increases in emissions since 2023.
The energy the average internet user is responsible for is growing. Where links to websites used to be the first thing an internet user saw upon entering a query on Google, the world's most popular search engine now returns a summary generated by its in-house AI system more often than not.
Transparency and measurement challenges
One of the biggest challenges in deciphering the exact impact of modern internet usage has been the lack of transparency from major tech companies. That changed when Google published its Gemini energy data.
Google's decision to publish energy data for Gemini marked a step towards understanding AI's environmental footprint. The environmental impact of a single query may appear negligible. The impact of trillions of them is another matter entirely.
Publishers, website owners and SEO professionals have reported declines in traffic since AI-generated answers began appearing at the top of search results. According to Ahrefs, AI Overviews can reduce clicks to websites by more than a third.
Users are often unable to disable the feature permanently. They must type "-ai" at the end of each query if they do not wish to receive an overview.
Sims Witherspoon, Climate Action Lead at Google DeepMind, says: "AI is not a 'silver bullet' for the climate crisis.
"As one tool among the many required, we do need its speed and scale to help us understand climate change, to optimise current infrastructure and to accelerate breakthrough science."
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Control over consumption patterns
The change has been welcomed by some people who appreciate receiving concise answers without needing to scavenge through multiple websites. That convenience comes with additional environmental costs that users cannot easily opt out of.
Questions remain about whether consumers should have greater control over AI-powered search experiences.
The debate surrounding AI Overviews extends beyond energy and water consumption.
Addressing consumption remains a problem for the firm.
Measurement provides a foundation for management decisions about resource use.
If Google can quantify the appetite of its AI model, mitigation strategies can begin.
The company now has baseline data for the energy and water costs of each interaction through its search platform.
